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strictly enforced in the Marine Corps. From boot camp on Marines are taught to wear their uniforms ‘correctly’ . The cover is worn a certain way, the ‘military line with the trousers, belt buckle and shirt lining up, shirt always tucked in, boots shined, trowser legs bloused, rank insignia placed exactly on the collars. Once in combat adjustments and accommodations have to be made to the regs.— although, uniformity is still required re. the wearing of the 782 gear, packs, e- tools, canteens, etc.. These are worn the same from Marine to Marine—even under combat conditions. Allowing Marines to remove their shirts while in a secure location became necessary for health and sanitary reasons. There were pictures of Marines with these uniform accommodations which found their way into the news media and some folks may have wondered whether or not our vaunted Marine discipline had broken down—nothing was further from the truth— we were insuring that our troops avoided ‘jungle rot’—immersion foot’ and other maladies that are associated with constant damp clothing and wet/dirty conditions. Unfortunately, as the war continued into the late 1960’s these ‘relaxed’ conditions seemed to escalate and our Marines appeared to look more like homeless people than the proud U. S. Marines they were. This process of ‘airing out’ was carefully orchestrated around considerations of security and discipline. In 1965-66 E Company required frequent ‘foot inspections’ which required the troops to remove their boots and be inspected by the squad leaders and /or the corpsman—this produced some familiar ‘bitching’ among the troops but was absolutely necessary and did help reduce the number of cases of immersion foot in our platoon. If we were fortunate enough to be close to a fresh
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